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The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts
A Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of 2026 | A Chicago Review of Books Most Anticipated Book of 2026 | A Selection for The Booksellers' List An eerie, spellbinding novel of grief, ghosts, apocalyptic rain, and slowly splintering reality, from an author who “writes with a pen as sharp and precise as a lancet.” —PEN/Hemingway Award judges’ citation
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—as Eleanor focused on her career as an online therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the choices she’s made.
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—as Eleanor focused on her career as an online therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the choices she’s made.
Audible Audio
First published March 3, 2026
About the author
Kim Fu
10 books539 followersKim Fu is the author of two novels, a collection of poetry, and most recently, the story collection LESSER KNOWN MONSTERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY, winner of the Washington State Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, as well as a finalist for the Giller Prize, the Ignyte Awards, the Shirley Jackson Awards, and the Saroyan International Prize. Stories in this collection have been selected for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and Best of the Net, featured on Levar Burton Reads and Selected Shorts, and optioned for television and film.
Their next novel, THE VALLEY OF VENGEFUL GHOSTS, is forthcoming from Tin House and HarperCollins Canada in March 2026.
Fu’s first novel, FOR TODAY I AM A BOY, won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and a Lambda Literary Award, as well as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Their second novel, THE LOST GIRLS OF CAMP FOREVERMORE, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. Fu has been longlisted for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize for mid-career authors. Their writing has appeared in the New York Times, Granta, the Atlantic, BOMB, Hazlitt, and the TLS.
Fu lives in Seattle, Washington.
Their next novel, THE VALLEY OF VENGEFUL GHOSTS, is forthcoming from Tin House and HarperCollins Canada in March 2026.
Fu’s first novel, FOR TODAY I AM A BOY, won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and a Lambda Literary Award, as well as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Their second novel, THE LOST GIRLS OF CAMP FOREVERMORE, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. Fu has been longlisted for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize for mid-career authors. Their writing has appeared in the New York Times, Granta, the Atlantic, BOMB, Hazlitt, and the TLS.
Fu lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 264 reviews
March 17, 2026
A fever dream of a book that had me questioning everything that I read, The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts was the type of psychological horror that I normally love. With an eerie, bleak atmosphere, isolated setting, and dystopian-ish feel, the whole story was steeped in both helplessness and sorrow to the point that it pulled me into that feeling as well. In fact, it resonated with me deeply. Exploring identity, grief, guilt, and dependency through the lens of an existentialist view of a mother-daughter relationship, it was a truly thought-provoking tale. You see, not only was it a low-key ghost story, but the literary fiction vibe made this metaphorical haunting into a heady brew as the narrator slowly lost her mind. I do have to warn you, though, it wasn’t quite the strait-laced horror novel that I was wanting.
So what exactly were my issues with this novel? Well, besides an ambiguous ending that made me want to throw the book across the room, the sometimes painfully slow pace on top of the lack of action made me feel rather bored here and there. That being said, this genre-bending novel was definitely a powerful reflection on the grief that accompanies the loss of a parent. Introspective, thoughtful, and heart-rending, it was a tear-jerker that had me crying honest-to-goodness tears. After all, the revelations that came about towards the end of the book took this concept full circle with both the plot and the characterization. Creepy, claustrophobic, and oppressive, in spite of the slow going, it was still a compelling, grief-fueled story that I most certainly won’t be forgetting any time soon. Rating of 3.25 stars.
SYNOPSIS:
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—so that Eleanor could focus on her career as a therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, but finding few options she can afford, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the dark choices she’s made.
Thank you Kim Fu and Zando Projects for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
PUB DATE: March 3, 2026
Content warning: death of a parent, sexual assault, dementia, terminal cancer, suicide, flooding, grief, mention of: drug overdose, animal cruelty/death
So what exactly were my issues with this novel? Well, besides an ambiguous ending that made me want to throw the book across the room, the sometimes painfully slow pace on top of the lack of action made me feel rather bored here and there. That being said, this genre-bending novel was definitely a powerful reflection on the grief that accompanies the loss of a parent. Introspective, thoughtful, and heart-rending, it was a tear-jerker that had me crying honest-to-goodness tears. After all, the revelations that came about towards the end of the book took this concept full circle with both the plot and the characterization. Creepy, claustrophobic, and oppressive, in spite of the slow going, it was still a compelling, grief-fueled story that I most certainly won’t be forgetting any time soon. Rating of 3.25 stars.
SYNOPSIS:
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—so that Eleanor could focus on her career as a therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, but finding few options she can afford, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the dark choices she’s made.
Thank you Kim Fu and Zando Projects for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
PUB DATE: March 3, 2026
Content warning: death of a parent, sexual assault, dementia, terminal cancer, suicide, flooding, grief, mention of: drug overdose, animal cruelty/death
April 28, 2026
Housing Eleanor's Nightmare
Kim Fu's “The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts” is a powerfully introspective novel that defies the traditional ghost story label. It skillfully merges literary fiction with psychological horror, charting a harrowing descent into the mind of a woman consumed by grief.
The story centers on Eleanor Fan, a therapist who is emotionally crippled by the death of her codependent and overprotective mother, Lele. Following Lele's final request, Eleanor uses her inheritance for an impulsive purchase: a model home in a remote, partially constructed development. This spontaneous decision swiftly spirals into a financial and psychological nightmare.
The book started out roughly for me, frustrated by Eleanor's constant, incredibly poor decisions, relentlessly inviting disaster. Her series of misfortunes felt almost self-inflicted, as if she were actively seeking, or perhaps even deserving of, the trouble that ensued. A prime example occurred with her very first partial repairs: she was intimidated and severely overcharged by an overly creepy character, yet her only response was to pay him off– just make him go away.
Eleanor's deteriorating mental state is physically mirrored by the dilapidated house, with its shoddy workmanship and persistent leaks amplified by the incessant torrential rain. As the narrative progresses, the initial frustration directed at Eleanor softens, replaced by a profound empathy that emerges from understanding the traumatic circumstances that shaped her current reality. Burdened by unprocessed earlier sexual assault, devastating grief, and an overwhelming feeling of arrested development and helplessness, Eleanor begins to experience vivid hallucinations. These apparitions include ghosts of her mother, her former mentor, and even the faces of her online therapy clients.
Sharing the incomparable Shirley Jackson's talent for the highly atmospheric, Kim Fu conjures a palpable sense of gloom, dampness, and claustrophobia that serves as a perfect mirror for Eleanor's despair. By touching on universal anxieties surrounding affordability and concerns over climate change, this novel goes beyond the traditional constraints of the horror genre.
The most moving aspect of this reading experience was my 180-degree turn in the perception of Eleanor. Initially, her seemingly illogical decisions led me to question whether they served primarily as mere plot devices. However, as her backstory was revealed, my sentiments transformed. I not only forgave her but developed a deep empathy for her panic and struggle against the overwhelming forces that ensnared her.
Readers who appreciate literary fiction, slow-burn psychological thrillers, or stories that leverage the fantastical to delve into profound human experiences like grief and trauma will find this novel highly recommended. The novel's atmosphere and themes will cling to your memory long after you've finished the final page.
Thank you to Zando Projects / Tin House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #TheValleyofVengefulGhosts #NetGalley
Kim Fu's “The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts” is a powerfully introspective novel that defies the traditional ghost story label. It skillfully merges literary fiction with psychological horror, charting a harrowing descent into the mind of a woman consumed by grief.
The story centers on Eleanor Fan, a therapist who is emotionally crippled by the death of her codependent and overprotective mother, Lele. Following Lele's final request, Eleanor uses her inheritance for an impulsive purchase: a model home in a remote, partially constructed development. This spontaneous decision swiftly spirals into a financial and psychological nightmare.
The book started out roughly for me, frustrated by Eleanor's constant, incredibly poor decisions, relentlessly inviting disaster. Her series of misfortunes felt almost self-inflicted, as if she were actively seeking, or perhaps even deserving of, the trouble that ensued. A prime example occurred with her very first partial repairs: she was intimidated and severely overcharged by an overly creepy character, yet her only response was to pay him off– just make him go away.
Eleanor's deteriorating mental state is physically mirrored by the dilapidated house, with its shoddy workmanship and persistent leaks amplified by the incessant torrential rain. As the narrative progresses, the initial frustration directed at Eleanor softens, replaced by a profound empathy that emerges from understanding the traumatic circumstances that shaped her current reality. Burdened by unprocessed earlier sexual assault, devastating grief, and an overwhelming feeling of arrested development and helplessness, Eleanor begins to experience vivid hallucinations. These apparitions include ghosts of her mother, her former mentor, and even the faces of her online therapy clients.
Sharing the incomparable Shirley Jackson's talent for the highly atmospheric, Kim Fu conjures a palpable sense of gloom, dampness, and claustrophobia that serves as a perfect mirror for Eleanor's despair. By touching on universal anxieties surrounding affordability and concerns over climate change, this novel goes beyond the traditional constraints of the horror genre.
The most moving aspect of this reading experience was my 180-degree turn in the perception of Eleanor. Initially, her seemingly illogical decisions led me to question whether they served primarily as mere plot devices. However, as her backstory was revealed, my sentiments transformed. I not only forgave her but developed a deep empathy for her panic and struggle against the overwhelming forces that ensnared her.
Readers who appreciate literary fiction, slow-burn psychological thrillers, or stories that leverage the fantastical to delve into profound human experiences like grief and trauma will find this novel highly recommended. The novel's atmosphere and themes will cling to your memory long after you've finished the final page.
Thank you to Zando Projects / Tin House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #TheValleyofVengefulGhosts #NetGalley
October 29, 2025
Brings a whole new meaning to the word "unsettling".
From the blurb, I expected a trippy haunted house story about grief and the environment, which isn’t an inaccurate way to describe this book, but The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is oh so much more than that.
First, I should say this might be the best story about the aftermath of COVID that I’ve ever read (so far). It’s not that this is a book specifically about the pandemic. It just gets mentioned in passing a number of times in a way that is extremely realistic and extremely intentional, treating the pandemic as a collective and ongoing trauma that nobody has fully managed to reckon with. We’ve all been expected to move on as if society as we know it hasn’t fundamentally changed forever, and that’s actually what this book is really about: reckoning—or not reckoning—with our fears and our traumas. The story deals with the trauma of the pandemic and the resulting isolation, as well as financial and work related trauma and the trauma of sexual violence and environmental violence. And, of course, there’s the trauma of losing a loved one, the story’s entire premise being that our protagonist, Eleanor, uses the meager inheritance she got from her recently deceased mother to make an ill advised purchase of a home that might look sturdy at first, but is actually falling apart and completely unlivable.
Though it’s about grief, it’s not a sad book, not exactly. You might get emotional in a scene or two, especially at the end, but the point of the book is to explore interesting questions—questions about grief and trauma and fear, yes, but also about the role of technology in shaping our fears, about what this technology can and can’t do for us, about how it connects us but also separates us, about the other things that separate us, about whether these divisions can sometimes keep us safe, about whether safety is more of an illusion than we think it is, about all the different ways we might be fooling ourselves into thinking everything is fine when it’s not, about how the world as a whole is falling apart and it sometimes feels like there’s nothing to do about it, about what collective and individual actions we can take and what actions we can’t, about growing up in this messed up world, and about growing up in general. It might seem overly ambitious, but it never feels that way. It just reads like a scary book about modern life, and modern life is *a lot*, so *a lot* of questions need to be addressed, and they are, all in a very thoughtful way. If the book is also heartbreaking and visceral and raw in the process of exploring these themes, that’s just a bonus.
All of these topics are handled by an author who is clearly very smart, who deeply understands when and why fear might cause a person’s thoughts to slide away from something important. Eleanor is a flawed character, but so so real. I totally bought that she wouldn’t be able to read bank statements without her brain stuttering, that she would barely blink twice when her mother starts haunting her, that she would think it’s reasonable to choose a very isolated and independent existence despite the fact that she’s never been independent before, that she would make every dumb decision that she makes over the course of the book even though she’s ostensibly a rather intelligent person. She has the energy of an overwhelmed woman who isn’t ready to be an adult, and I can empathize. The character work here is nothing short of brilliant.
I haven’t even gotten around to gushing about my favorite part of the book, which is the setting. Sometimes a ghost story will have a setting that feels so alive that it’s basically a character of its own. Kim Fu does the opposite. The atmosphere feels dead and stagnant, but deliberately so, making it all the more frightening. Imagine a valley that has been razed of all trees in order to construct an entire neighborhood. Now imagine that only two houses ever got built, both of them right next to each other, while the rest of the valley remains an unfinished, unbuilt wasteland, where nature might one day creep back in, but that process is only just starting. That’s where this story takes place. It’s stark and isolating and disorienting and liminal. It's unsettled and unsettling. The roads are unreliable. The neighbors are nonexistent. The rain hardly stops. The WiFi is spotty. The house where Eleanor lives, with the constant need for costly repairs, seems to come straight out of the average millennial’s stress dreams about the impossibility of home ownership.
It’s actually even weirder and more nightmarish than I’m making it out to be, but no description I give here can fully do it justice. Only Fu’s rhythmic and lyrical prose can truly capture this atmosphere. She writes in a way that is precise without losing the sense of expansive spectacle, efficient without being clipped or pedestrian, and vivid without getting bogged down in unnecessary detail. She keeps the pace moving and the page count low, but she also lingers in important moments, allowing you to take a second to slow down and appreciate how much mastery she has over the English language. There wasn’t a single chapter in this book when my jaw wasn’t fully on the floor at least once.
~Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a Digital ARC. All opinions are my own.~
From the blurb, I expected a trippy haunted house story about grief and the environment, which isn’t an inaccurate way to describe this book, but The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is oh so much more than that.
First, I should say this might be the best story about the aftermath of COVID that I’ve ever read (so far). It’s not that this is a book specifically about the pandemic. It just gets mentioned in passing a number of times in a way that is extremely realistic and extremely intentional, treating the pandemic as a collective and ongoing trauma that nobody has fully managed to reckon with. We’ve all been expected to move on as if society as we know it hasn’t fundamentally changed forever, and that’s actually what this book is really about: reckoning—or not reckoning—with our fears and our traumas. The story deals with the trauma of the pandemic and the resulting isolation, as well as financial and work related trauma and the trauma of sexual violence and environmental violence. And, of course, there’s the trauma of losing a loved one, the story’s entire premise being that our protagonist, Eleanor, uses the meager inheritance she got from her recently deceased mother to make an ill advised purchase of a home that might look sturdy at first, but is actually falling apart and completely unlivable.
Though it’s about grief, it’s not a sad book, not exactly. You might get emotional in a scene or two, especially at the end, but the point of the book is to explore interesting questions—questions about grief and trauma and fear, yes, but also about the role of technology in shaping our fears, about what this technology can and can’t do for us, about how it connects us but also separates us, about the other things that separate us, about whether these divisions can sometimes keep us safe, about whether safety is more of an illusion than we think it is, about all the different ways we might be fooling ourselves into thinking everything is fine when it’s not, about how the world as a whole is falling apart and it sometimes feels like there’s nothing to do about it, about what collective and individual actions we can take and what actions we can’t, about growing up in this messed up world, and about growing up in general. It might seem overly ambitious, but it never feels that way. It just reads like a scary book about modern life, and modern life is *a lot*, so *a lot* of questions need to be addressed, and they are, all in a very thoughtful way. If the book is also heartbreaking and visceral and raw in the process of exploring these themes, that’s just a bonus.
All of these topics are handled by an author who is clearly very smart, who deeply understands when and why fear might cause a person’s thoughts to slide away from something important. Eleanor is a flawed character, but so so real. I totally bought that she wouldn’t be able to read bank statements without her brain stuttering, that she would barely blink twice when her mother starts haunting her, that she would think it’s reasonable to choose a very isolated and independent existence despite the fact that she’s never been independent before, that she would make every dumb decision that she makes over the course of the book even though she’s ostensibly a rather intelligent person. She has the energy of an overwhelmed woman who isn’t ready to be an adult, and I can empathize. The character work here is nothing short of brilliant.
I haven’t even gotten around to gushing about my favorite part of the book, which is the setting. Sometimes a ghost story will have a setting that feels so alive that it’s basically a character of its own. Kim Fu does the opposite. The atmosphere feels dead and stagnant, but deliberately so, making it all the more frightening. Imagine a valley that has been razed of all trees in order to construct an entire neighborhood. Now imagine that only two houses ever got built, both of them right next to each other, while the rest of the valley remains an unfinished, unbuilt wasteland, where nature might one day creep back in, but that process is only just starting. That’s where this story takes place. It’s stark and isolating and disorienting and liminal. It's unsettled and unsettling. The roads are unreliable. The neighbors are nonexistent. The rain hardly stops. The WiFi is spotty. The house where Eleanor lives, with the constant need for costly repairs, seems to come straight out of the average millennial’s stress dreams about the impossibility of home ownership.
It’s actually even weirder and more nightmarish than I’m making it out to be, but no description I give here can fully do it justice. Only Fu’s rhythmic and lyrical prose can truly capture this atmosphere. She writes in a way that is precise without losing the sense of expansive spectacle, efficient without being clipped or pedestrian, and vivid without getting bogged down in unnecessary detail. She keeps the pace moving and the page count low, but she also lingers in important moments, allowing you to take a second to slow down and appreciate how much mastery she has over the English language. There wasn’t a single chapter in this book when my jaw wasn’t fully on the floor at least once.
~Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a Digital ARC. All opinions are my own.~
Did Not Finish
January 10, 2026DNF @ 36%
I thought this was going to be more horror, but it ended up being a lit fic/character study about grief and loneliness post-pandemic, featuring a therapist who seriously needs therapy herself because of her mommy issues.
Lit fic lovers will eat this up, but this isn't my thing at all.
Thank you to Tin House and NetGalley for this arc.
I thought this was going to be more horror, but it ended up being a lit fic/character study about grief and loneliness post-pandemic, featuring a therapist who seriously needs therapy herself because of her mommy issues.
Lit fic lovers will eat this up, but this isn't my thing at all.
Thank you to Tin House and NetGalley for this arc.
Read
January 7, 2026
Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:
I fell hard for Fu's writing through their short fiction in Lesser-Known Monsters of the 21st Century, so I was delighted to learn that we're getting a new novel from this award-winning author. I love a novel perched in the uncanny valley and this story about a woman unmoored by the death of her controlling mother, a woman who, ever-obedient, buys a house built on shadowy foundations with her inheritance, sounds right up my alley. Lesser-Known Monsters taught me that Fu is the writer to tell an immersive story grounded in earthly issues and haunted by ghosts. —S. Zainab Williams
I fell hard for Fu's writing through their short fiction in Lesser-Known Monsters of the 21st Century, so I was delighted to learn that we're getting a new novel from this award-winning author. I love a novel perched in the uncanny valley and this story about a woman unmoored by the death of her controlling mother, a woman who, ever-obedient, buys a house built on shadowy foundations with her inheritance, sounds right up my alley. Lesser-Known Monsters taught me that Fu is the writer to tell an immersive story grounded in earthly issues and haunted by ghosts. —S. Zainab Williams
April 21, 2026
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: An eerie, spellbinding novel of grief, ghosts, apocalyptic rain, and slowly splintering reality, from an author who “writes with a pen as sharp and precise as a lancet.” —PEN/Hemingway Award judges’ citation
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—as Eleanor focused on her career as an online therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the choices she’s made.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: When something is too good to be true, it is. Nothing is more guaranteed to blind you to that reality than desperation. Eleanor's mother, Lele, has controlled Eleanor's life to the point of a toxic...but comfortable...dependence on Lele for the mechanics of living. Tedious adulting offloaded onto a partner is seldom a good idea, and when the partner is a parent it is catastrophic. Parents die. it's part of the bargain. Eleanor finds Lele's death more than merely unpleasant, more than simply painful: it's her utter undoing. Lele cooked, laundered, managed Eleanor's world. Her inevitable death, far too early it's true, unmoors Eleanor in every way.
Parents expect their children will grieve on their death but continue to live and to manage themselves as one has taught them to do. Lele has not taught Eleanor anything of note, for complicated reasons no doubt but the effect is now all Eleanor has is last instructions: Buy a house.
Ever bought a house? It is complicated, it is intimidating, it is unnervingly legal and permanent and deepy scary. Eleanor is ludicrously ill-suited to the task on every level. It is no wonder she, deeply immersed in her business life of being a therapist, makes practical mistakes with emotional consequences. She can afford this really cool-sounding house in a stunning natural setting? How? That should be so far out of her reach...what's the catch, where's the trigger, what?? But you need to be savvy to the ways of the world to see that from the off, Author Fu writes this description of the realtor who sells her this place: "His thick hair was slicked back, coiffed high off his forehead. He smiled toothily as she approached. He held his hand out for a shake, and a large watch slid out of his jacket sleeve, the band and bezel the same chrome brightness as his car."
Run, Eleanor, run! But of course she doesn't. So she ends up with the whitest elephant of all white elephants. And the unraveling begins.
It's here where I leave Eleanor and her plight to you to discover. I took the trip to tell you if it was one worth taking, and why. It's a modern take on horror, this dread and unmooredness, this sense of waters so much deeper than you thought fro looking at them, this...unease. Eleanor stands in for us on the cusp of a revolution no one wants, on every front. No matter how much AI slop "They" feed us, people don't care about it; no matter how much doubt "They" fling over reality, summers are hotter and winters weirder and more violent; so there's a constant pressure to mistrust your own sense of Reality and leave everything to "Them" to manage.
It's not going well. For us, for Eleanor, for the planet.
The way the story unfolds is intended to build that...wrongness, unease, unhappiness...into the experience the reader and Eleanor exist inside, to make the boil expand so it will finally pop, them be cleaned out. But by whom? At what cost in pain and unpleasant side effects? Can we, in fact, clean up our own mess?
Not if we, like Eleanor, have no real connection to the way "They" are running reality on our behalf.
It's short enough as a read to be a weekend's focused read. It's intense enough as a narrative to support that kind of sustained attention. It's a deeply satisfying immersion into the slow awakening of a grieving soul to the cost of extending childhood far, far too long. It's hard to be alive in a world beset by challenges too big to make a positive difference in by one's self.
Welcome to adulthood. Go out and do the work, no matter how scary or hard, because the alternative is drowning.
The Publisher Says: An eerie, spellbinding novel of grief, ghosts, apocalyptic rain, and slowly splintering reality, from an author who “writes with a pen as sharp and precise as a lancet.” —PEN/Hemingway Award judges’ citation
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life—from meals, to laundry, to finances—as Eleanor focused on her career as an online therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
Desperate to obey her mother one last time, Eleanor impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start, until the rain comes—an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur. Haunted by the stories of her clients, a stream of workmen and bureaucrats she can’t trust, and visions of ghosts from her past and present, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the choices she’s made.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: When something is too good to be true, it is. Nothing is more guaranteed to blind you to that reality than desperation. Eleanor's mother, Lele, has controlled Eleanor's life to the point of a toxic...but comfortable...dependence on Lele for the mechanics of living. Tedious adulting offloaded onto a partner is seldom a good idea, and when the partner is a parent it is catastrophic. Parents die. it's part of the bargain. Eleanor finds Lele's death more than merely unpleasant, more than simply painful: it's her utter undoing. Lele cooked, laundered, managed Eleanor's world. Her inevitable death, far too early it's true, unmoors Eleanor in every way.
Parents expect their children will grieve on their death but continue to live and to manage themselves as one has taught them to do. Lele has not taught Eleanor anything of note, for complicated reasons no doubt but the effect is now all Eleanor has is last instructions: Buy a house.
Ever bought a house? It is complicated, it is intimidating, it is unnervingly legal and permanent and deepy scary. Eleanor is ludicrously ill-suited to the task on every level. It is no wonder she, deeply immersed in her business life of being a therapist, makes practical mistakes with emotional consequences. She can afford this really cool-sounding house in a stunning natural setting? How? That should be so far out of her reach...what's the catch, where's the trigger, what?? But you need to be savvy to the ways of the world to see that from the off, Author Fu writes this description of the realtor who sells her this place: "His thick hair was slicked back, coiffed high off his forehead. He smiled toothily as she approached. He held his hand out for a shake, and a large watch slid out of his jacket sleeve, the band and bezel the same chrome brightness as his car."
Run, Eleanor, run! But of course she doesn't. So she ends up with the whitest elephant of all white elephants. And the unraveling begins.
It's here where I leave Eleanor and her plight to you to discover. I took the trip to tell you if it was one worth taking, and why. It's a modern take on horror, this dread and unmooredness, this sense of waters so much deeper than you thought fro looking at them, this...unease. Eleanor stands in for us on the cusp of a revolution no one wants, on every front. No matter how much AI slop "They" feed us, people don't care about it; no matter how much doubt "They" fling over reality, summers are hotter and winters weirder and more violent; so there's a constant pressure to mistrust your own sense of Reality and leave everything to "Them" to manage.
It's not going well. For us, for Eleanor, for the planet.
The way the story unfolds is intended to build that...wrongness, unease, unhappiness...into the experience the reader and Eleanor exist inside, to make the boil expand so it will finally pop, them be cleaned out. But by whom? At what cost in pain and unpleasant side effects? Can we, in fact, clean up our own mess?
Not if we, like Eleanor, have no real connection to the way "They" are running reality on our behalf.
It's short enough as a read to be a weekend's focused read. It's intense enough as a narrative to support that kind of sustained attention. It's a deeply satisfying immersion into the slow awakening of a grieving soul to the cost of extending childhood far, far too long. It's hard to be alive in a world beset by challenges too big to make a positive difference in by one's self.
Welcome to adulthood. Go out and do the work, no matter how scary or hard, because the alternative is drowning.
March 10, 2026
5/5 stars
"What would Lele say? What would Lele do? She asked herself these questions all the time, her answers feeble and uncertain, never knowing if she was right. She’d made this ghost. It couldn’t tell her anything new."
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is an incredibly effective ghost-story with themes of grief, trauma and social isolation. It drew me in with its atmosphere, but truly snuck up on me with how deeply I came to feel for the main character. I highly recommend this one if you’re in the market for an introspective, slower paced horror novel that will leave a deep impact!
The Story:
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. Being in her late twenties and working as a therapist herself, she feels like she should be able to do this, but the loss of her mother feels as if the entire foundation on which her life was built is gone. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
The model-home in the valley – part of an abandoned development project, with a shadowy past and unclear future – seems like an opportunity for a new start. Until she moves in, and the rain begins to fall. The seemingly never-ending torrential downpour, washes away the shiny veneer, to expose a structurally unsound lemon-of-a-house underneath. Simultaneously, the rain seems to blur the lines between reality and illusion, and ghost of both the house ánd Eleanors past take up residence in her walls.
What I liked:
I will start with the elements of the book that I liked, and that met my expectations, leaving the parts that truly lifted it towards a 5-star-read for me for the end.
First things first; a haunted-house story stands or falls with atmosphere, and this book had it in spades. From the isolated valley setting, to the rain-soaked dreary imagery, to the tangible sentence-level descriptions of rooms and hallways that feel just a little “off”; Kim Fu does a phenomenal job of twisting the familiar into something askew and eerie.
Without spoiling anything; there are hauntings and horrors of both the supernatural and real-life variety present in this book. Kim Fu weaves these together into a layered narrative that leave a lot contemplate, even after finishing the book. The book is slow-paced, which helps to build an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread that compliments the themes perfectly, and gives the characters plenty of space to develop themselves.
What I loved:
Speaking of developing characters; it was the character of Eleanor that elevated this book from “good” to “exceptional” for me. And as mentioned in the first line of this review, my love for this character came as quite the surprise to even myself.
This is a bit of a confession, but Eleanor starts off as the kind of person that I struggle to relate to most, both in books ánd real-life. She is naïve, passive and almost childlike in the way that she leans in to full dependence on other people to take care of her. It becomes clear that her mother and her had a very codependent relationship in the years before her death, and Eleanor has been coddled and protected into the role that she takes now. It’s a coping style that couldn’t be further from mine, and I often find myself irritated by people like this and their “wallowing”. So too with Eleanor. I’m almost ashamed to say: I hated her at first…
Yet, as we slowly peel back the ghostly layers of Eleanor’s past, we get glimpses of the completely different woman that she was just a few years ago, as well as the events that put her in the position she is in now. Her infantilized behaviour and codependency on her mother are reframed to become part of the horror. The horror of a woman completely disempowered by what life threw at her.
From that moment on, I became deeply sympathetic to Eleanor. I was invested in her development (which she definitely earns throughout the book) and was cheering her on every step of the way.
Part of the joy of reading to me, is crawling into the heads of characters, and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts allowed me to do this, with a character-type I genuinely didn’t think I’d relate to.
All of that was just the cherry on the cake of an already greatly atmospheric haunted house story that would make Eleanors namesake on Hill House proud. Fans of the genre, this is one to keep your eyes peeled for!
Many thanks to Tin House publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
"What would Lele say? What would Lele do? She asked herself these questions all the time, her answers feeble and uncertain, never knowing if she was right. She’d made this ghost. It couldn’t tell her anything new."
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is an incredibly effective ghost-story with themes of grief, trauma and social isolation. It drew me in with its atmosphere, but truly snuck up on me with how deeply I came to feel for the main character. I highly recommend this one if you’re in the market for an introspective, slower paced horror novel that will leave a deep impact!
The Story:
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. Being in her late twenties and working as a therapist herself, she feels like she should be able to do this, but the loss of her mother feels as if the entire foundation on which her life was built is gone. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house.
The model-home in the valley – part of an abandoned development project, with a shadowy past and unclear future – seems like an opportunity for a new start. Until she moves in, and the rain begins to fall. The seemingly never-ending torrential downpour, washes away the shiny veneer, to expose a structurally unsound lemon-of-a-house underneath. Simultaneously, the rain seems to blur the lines between reality and illusion, and ghost of both the house ánd Eleanors past take up residence in her walls.
What I liked:
I will start with the elements of the book that I liked, and that met my expectations, leaving the parts that truly lifted it towards a 5-star-read for me for the end.
First things first; a haunted-house story stands or falls with atmosphere, and this book had it in spades. From the isolated valley setting, to the rain-soaked dreary imagery, to the tangible sentence-level descriptions of rooms and hallways that feel just a little “off”; Kim Fu does a phenomenal job of twisting the familiar into something askew and eerie.
Without spoiling anything; there are hauntings and horrors of both the supernatural and real-life variety present in this book. Kim Fu weaves these together into a layered narrative that leave a lot contemplate, even after finishing the book. The book is slow-paced, which helps to build an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread that compliments the themes perfectly, and gives the characters plenty of space to develop themselves.
What I loved:
Speaking of developing characters; it was the character of Eleanor that elevated this book from “good” to “exceptional” for me. And as mentioned in the first line of this review, my love for this character came as quite the surprise to even myself.
This is a bit of a confession, but Eleanor starts off as the kind of person that I struggle to relate to most, both in books ánd real-life. She is naïve, passive and almost childlike in the way that she leans in to full dependence on other people to take care of her. It becomes clear that her mother and her had a very codependent relationship in the years before her death, and Eleanor has been coddled and protected into the role that she takes now. It’s a coping style that couldn’t be further from mine, and I often find myself irritated by people like this and their “wallowing”. So too with Eleanor. I’m almost ashamed to say: I hated her at first…
Yet, as we slowly peel back the ghostly layers of Eleanor’s past, we get glimpses of the completely different woman that she was just a few years ago, as well as the events that put her in the position she is in now. Her infantilized behaviour and codependency on her mother are reframed to become part of the horror. The horror of a woman completely disempowered by what life threw at her.
From that moment on, I became deeply sympathetic to Eleanor. I was invested in her development (which she definitely earns throughout the book) and was cheering her on every step of the way.
Part of the joy of reading to me, is crawling into the heads of characters, and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts allowed me to do this, with a character-type I genuinely didn’t think I’d relate to.
All of that was just the cherry on the cake of an already greatly atmospheric haunted house story that would make Eleanors namesake on Hill House proud. Fans of the genre, this is one to keep your eyes peeled for!
Many thanks to Tin House publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
November 6, 2025
i went into this expecting a haunted house horror story — eerie woods, unsettling neighbours, a ghost of grief lingering in the corners. but what i got instead was a very slow, very metaphor-heavy exploration of grief and the unravelling of a woman’s interior world. which isn’t bad as a concept, but i think the pacing and tone just didn’t work for me personally.
the rain in this book is supposed to create atmosphere, but after a while, it just started to feel suffocating and monotonous, like i was getting mouldy along with the house. eleanor’s emotional spiral makes sense thematically, but the story moves so slowly that i often felt like the plot wasn’t going anywhere. i kept waiting for something to shift or escalate, and it never really did. the haunting isn’t horror but metaphor. and while i can appreciate what the author was trying to do with that, i just wasn’t the audience for it.
i can see how readers who enjoy quiet, introspective novels about grief will connect with this more deeply. however, for me, it was hard to stay invested. the idea is clever, and i respect the craft, but the reading experience felt dull and stagnant.
-------
to-read
i'm sensing something sinister at play...
*thank you to Tin House for the ARC*
the rain in this book is supposed to create atmosphere, but after a while, it just started to feel suffocating and monotonous, like i was getting mouldy along with the house. eleanor’s emotional spiral makes sense thematically, but the story moves so slowly that i often felt like the plot wasn’t going anywhere. i kept waiting for something to shift or escalate, and it never really did. the haunting isn’t horror but metaphor. and while i can appreciate what the author was trying to do with that, i just wasn’t the audience for it.
i can see how readers who enjoy quiet, introspective novels about grief will connect with this more deeply. however, for me, it was hard to stay invested. the idea is clever, and i respect the craft, but the reading experience felt dull and stagnant.
-------
to-read
i'm sensing something sinister at play...
*thank you to Tin House for the ARC*
January 23, 2026
I enjoyed this book - well, enjoyed may not be quite the right word for such an emotionally tense story - but I can understand why it got such mixed reviews. It read very much like someone who is foremost a short story writer, beautiful sentences but a pace so slow that it became sluggish in parts. In the first third I felt like giving up a few times but I was so captivated by the plight of the titular character that I pressed on.
As it turned out, the pacing was also part of the style that contributed to the eerie atmosphere. The interminable nature of it led to an unsettling, disturbing atmosphere as you felt you were losing your mind right along with Eleanor. This is not a scary, in-your-face haunted house novel, nor is it quite a literary descent into madness while dealing with grief, but it is a mix of both of those. The dread is slow and creepy and almost too subtle, built into the monotony of the prose.
Eleanor is a new adult who just lost her controlling mother to cancer. Her mother did everything for her - paid her bills, cooked her meals, did her laundry. She wouldn't allow her to grow up. Free of her at last, Eleanor fulfills her last wish and buys a house, her first big-girl decision. Their complicated, loving, but at times abusive relationship was one of the most compelling parts of the story.
But helpless Eleanor bought a model home with a lot of problems under the surface in a development where the developer killed himself after going bankrupt. Lonely, naive Eleanor doesn't think to ask questions.
For work she's an online therapist, a profession that lent itself well to the creepy disembodiment of Eleanor's total isolation. If you've ever been sick of Teams meetings, these were video calls from hell.
Eleanor starts seeing her mother's ghost everywhere as the problems with the house add up. Underlying the house issues was an interesting commentary about housing inequities and capitalism.
Although Eleanor could be annoyingly helpless and needy, I emotionally connected to her and was rooting for her to break free of the child prison her mother had built for her. I wish the pace had been more gripping, but I also understood the choice. It focused the reader in on Eleanor's interiority and made us question her increasingly warped reality.
Overall I thought this was a powerful, beautiful story of grief and coming of age, but it certainly won't be for everyone. It was my kind of psychological horror though.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
As it turned out, the pacing was also part of the style that contributed to the eerie atmosphere. The interminable nature of it led to an unsettling, disturbing atmosphere as you felt you were losing your mind right along with Eleanor. This is not a scary, in-your-face haunted house novel, nor is it quite a literary descent into madness while dealing with grief, but it is a mix of both of those. The dread is slow and creepy and almost too subtle, built into the monotony of the prose.
Eleanor is a new adult who just lost her controlling mother to cancer. Her mother did everything for her - paid her bills, cooked her meals, did her laundry. She wouldn't allow her to grow up. Free of her at last, Eleanor fulfills her last wish and buys a house, her first big-girl decision. Their complicated, loving, but at times abusive relationship was one of the most compelling parts of the story.
But helpless Eleanor bought a model home with a lot of problems under the surface in a development where the developer killed himself after going bankrupt. Lonely, naive Eleanor doesn't think to ask questions.
For work she's an online therapist, a profession that lent itself well to the creepy disembodiment of Eleanor's total isolation. If you've ever been sick of Teams meetings, these were video calls from hell.
Eleanor starts seeing her mother's ghost everywhere as the problems with the house add up. Underlying the house issues was an interesting commentary about housing inequities and capitalism.
Although Eleanor could be annoyingly helpless and needy, I emotionally connected to her and was rooting for her to break free of the child prison her mother had built for her. I wish the pace had been more gripping, but I also understood the choice. It focused the reader in on Eleanor's interiority and made us question her increasingly warped reality.
Overall I thought this was a powerful, beautiful story of grief and coming of age, but it certainly won't be for everyone. It was my kind of psychological horror though.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
April 2, 2026
Elanor's entire life had been managed by her mother. But now that her mother has passed, she's unsure about how to navigate much of her life. However, she's determined to honor mother's last instruction, to use her inheritance to buy a house. With scant offerings, she finally let's a realtor talk her into buying a house that was formerly a model home for a now abandoned housing development in a valley. Though it seems OK at first, it's not long before little things start to go wrong with the home. Then the rains come, seemingly without end. And with the rain comes leaks, first by one window, then spreading to other areas. On top of that, Elanor keeps seeing her mother's ghost throughout the house. As the rains continue, the damage to her home becomes more costly, she finds herself sinking deeper into a situation she's not equipped to handle.
At first I was liking the book, the writing solid and the situation different. However, though it's not a long book at all, by the midway point it started feeling like it would never end, much like the rain in the story. I'm guessing the constant rain and failures with her first ever home are metaphors for the grief that overwhelms her and for how the world itself seems since she relied so much on her mother who's no longer there to guide her. But one of my biggest problems with the book is the fact that Elanor is a licensed therapist (though not a spectacular one), yet, she never really grew up with how much her mother did everything for her and told her how to navigate life, and has no idea how to council herself. That just didn't jibe for me. And it just became depressing how lost she was and how much just steadily went wrong for her, and at the same time everything continually degrading just got boring and felt like a good chunk should have been left out, as a 150 or so page novella would have worked better. 2.5/5*
At first I was liking the book, the writing solid and the situation different. However, though it's not a long book at all, by the midway point it started feeling like it would never end, much like the rain in the story. I'm guessing the constant rain and failures with her first ever home are metaphors for the grief that overwhelms her and for how the world itself seems since she relied so much on her mother who's no longer there to guide her. But one of my biggest problems with the book is the fact that Elanor is a licensed therapist (though not a spectacular one), yet, she never really grew up with how much her mother did everything for her and told her how to navigate life, and has no idea how to council herself. That just didn't jibe for me. And it just became depressing how lost she was and how much just steadily went wrong for her, and at the same time everything continually degrading just got boring and felt like a good chunk should have been left out, as a 150 or so page novella would have worked better. 2.5/5*
April 16, 2026
what?? that’s it???
this started off so strong but ended up being the manifesto of an author who HAS to also be a therapist that is vehemently against betterhelp… that’s simply not the vibe i wish for a horror book to bring to the function
this started off so strong but ended up being the manifesto of an author who HAS to also be a therapist that is vehemently against betterhelp… that’s simply not the vibe i wish for a horror book to bring to the function
January 28, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
"She understood outliving one's parents was the natural order of things, but deep down she had always expected to die young while Lele lived past a hundred, past two hundred, became the oldest woman ever to walk the earth."
This is a quiet, literary exploration of grief, dependency, mother-daughter relationships, and isolation. When Eleanor's mother passes away, she's forced to reckon with all the ways in which she was dependent on her ailing mother. In an attempt to follow her mother's final instructions for her, she purchases a house - one in an isolated, abandoned development. As relentless rain seeps in through the windows, the house falls into disrepair, and Eleanor with it. She's unable to separate her grief-fueled imagination from reality.
I loved this eerie, bleak atmosphere and sharp prose. I understand that some readers expected more of a horror/ghost story, but I don't think that's what the book is trying to do, so I was content with more of a metaphorical haunting. Fu examines the uncomfortable, ugly aspects of grief and dependency, and the environment takes that theme of isolation to a really satisfying level. I think anyone who likes literary fiction that is not very plot-centric should give this a try.
I think the ending is somewhat ambiguous and not very satisfying, but I'd still recommend if you're in the mood for great prose & an eerie setting!
"She understood outliving one's parents was the natural order of things, but deep down she had always expected to die young while Lele lived past a hundred, past two hundred, became the oldest woman ever to walk the earth."
This is a quiet, literary exploration of grief, dependency, mother-daughter relationships, and isolation. When Eleanor's mother passes away, she's forced to reckon with all the ways in which she was dependent on her ailing mother. In an attempt to follow her mother's final instructions for her, she purchases a house - one in an isolated, abandoned development. As relentless rain seeps in through the windows, the house falls into disrepair, and Eleanor with it. She's unable to separate her grief-fueled imagination from reality.
I loved this eerie, bleak atmosphere and sharp prose. I understand that some readers expected more of a horror/ghost story, but I don't think that's what the book is trying to do, so I was content with more of a metaphorical haunting. Fu examines the uncomfortable, ugly aspects of grief and dependency, and the environment takes that theme of isolation to a really satisfying level. I think anyone who likes literary fiction that is not very plot-centric should give this a try.
I think the ending is somewhat ambiguous and not very satisfying, but I'd still recommend if you're in the mood for great prose & an eerie setting!
March 29, 2026
This book explores the grief Eleanor, the main character, experiences after the death of her mother, Lele. Kim Fu expertly uses the rain as a metaphor for coping with the loss of a loved one. Per Lele’s explicit instructions, before her death, Eleanor purchases a home. However, she buys a model home, in a mostly deserted community of unfinished homes, in a deep valley. The home floods from the torrential rainstorms. The walls buckle, the locks saturated from the rain, don’t function properly, the ceiling becomes so wet, it too begins to deteriorate. The house becomes a wet, crumbling mess, as Eleanor struggles to find her way, without her mother. I know It will take me some time to dry out completely.
Side note-yes, the main character, Eleanor appears to be an ode to Shirley Jackson’s Eleanor, of The Haunting of Hill House fame.
Side note-yes, the main character, Eleanor appears to be an ode to Shirley Jackson’s Eleanor, of The Haunting of Hill House fame.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2026
Eleanor’s mother is battling cancer. Since her career and personal life are in crisis, she moves in. However, it is the mother who takes care of the daughter, just as she has been doing for twenty-nine years. You can safely say that Eleanor is the female version of a mama’s boy; there is nothing her mom wouldn’t do for her daughter. After she dies, Eleanor follows her mom’s last wish and hastily buys herself a house. Ill-prepared and grief stricken, this just might not be the best decision. And because this is a horror novel, we know that things will go very, very wrong for Eleanor.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is Grief Horror at its best, with the house epitomizing Eleanor’s fragility. The constant rain—and her job as an online therapist—isolate her. As the badly constructed house begins to crack and collapse, Eleanor begins drowning figuratively and literally.
There is much in common with Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House: an isolated young woman by the name of Eleanor with a complicated relationship with her mother who lets a sentient house get the better of her.
Kim Fu—a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award—has crafted a literary horror novel that builds the horror and dread slowly and viscerally. I highly recommend you check this one out.
I would like to thank Tin House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is Grief Horror at its best, with the house epitomizing Eleanor’s fragility. The constant rain—and her job as an online therapist—isolate her. As the badly constructed house begins to crack and collapse, Eleanor begins drowning figuratively and literally.
There is much in common with Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House: an isolated young woman by the name of Eleanor with a complicated relationship with her mother who lets a sentient house get the better of her.
Kim Fu—a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award—has crafted a literary horror novel that builds the horror and dread slowly and viscerally. I highly recommend you check this one out.
I would like to thank Tin House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
December 2, 2025
I read this during a migraine episode where I laid in the dark for the entire day. It felt like I was slipping into insanity with the main character. Also on a rainy day night I add. I felt like the author didn’t do a great job of making me sympathize for our protagonist. I saw her as others did: a needy child who never grew up. I felt like not much happened and the story went on too long. I think the points it made on grief were important still. I just wish I could’ve connected to the story more. It was less scary and thrilling than it was sad.
Thank you Net Galley for the free copy.
Thank you Net Galley for the free copy.
December 2, 2025
Thank you to Zando Projects for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu is the story of a recently bereaved therapist named Eleanor who, with her inheritance, buys a house in an isolated and abandoned development. As she works on her grief and comes to grips with her situation, she becomes haunted with the ghosts of her past.
What if, the real horrors, were home repair estimates and contractors? While ghosts are omnipresent in this story, whether lurking at the periphery of scenes or whispering into the main character’s ear, a great deal of the tension in this story comes from the house, which only shackles Eleanor in place, feeling isolated and ill-equipped for life on her own. The author describes mouldering floors, flooding windows, and an oppressive sense of futility. The contracts, repair estimates, and unhelpful insurance agents add real work distaste and stress to a story otherwise told mostly internally.
Eleanor is an interesting character. While we have flashes in the past of a woman who was motivated in life and research, that character has essentially vanished. A combination of trauma and embarrassment coupled with a codependent relationship with her mother have effectively caused her to regress to a state of depressed childishness. I did like that this was a pretty unusual presentation. Rather than rage, or misery, she presents her grief as a feeling of helplessness and being lost.
While this story has an interesting concept, it has very large swaths of time between action point. The book ruminates internally, and the external action is just as slow. It feels like the book is very repetitive once the house is purchased, and doesn’t make much headway until the final scenes. To its credit, the book is deeply atmospheric and beautifully realistic, however, it is at points painfully slow.
I think that for some people, looking for a slow reflection on grief and difficult loss as the adult child of a parent, this might be a perfect selection. Personally, I thought despite some interesting characterization and very stunning settings, that the book seemed to constantly be treading water, inching the plot along. I’m giving this book 3/5, with the reservation that it may be better received by someone who really needs a subtle reflection on grief.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu is the story of a recently bereaved therapist named Eleanor who, with her inheritance, buys a house in an isolated and abandoned development. As she works on her grief and comes to grips with her situation, she becomes haunted with the ghosts of her past.
What if, the real horrors, were home repair estimates and contractors? While ghosts are omnipresent in this story, whether lurking at the periphery of scenes or whispering into the main character’s ear, a great deal of the tension in this story comes from the house, which only shackles Eleanor in place, feeling isolated and ill-equipped for life on her own. The author describes mouldering floors, flooding windows, and an oppressive sense of futility. The contracts, repair estimates, and unhelpful insurance agents add real work distaste and stress to a story otherwise told mostly internally.
Eleanor is an interesting character. While we have flashes in the past of a woman who was motivated in life and research, that character has essentially vanished. A combination of trauma and embarrassment coupled with a codependent relationship with her mother have effectively caused her to regress to a state of depressed childishness. I did like that this was a pretty unusual presentation. Rather than rage, or misery, she presents her grief as a feeling of helplessness and being lost.
While this story has an interesting concept, it has very large swaths of time between action point. The book ruminates internally, and the external action is just as slow. It feels like the book is very repetitive once the house is purchased, and doesn’t make much headway until the final scenes. To its credit, the book is deeply atmospheric and beautifully realistic, however, it is at points painfully slow.
I think that for some people, looking for a slow reflection on grief and difficult loss as the adult child of a parent, this might be a perfect selection. Personally, I thought despite some interesting characterization and very stunning settings, that the book seemed to constantly be treading water, inching the plot along. I’m giving this book 3/5, with the reservation that it may be better received by someone who really needs a subtle reflection on grief.
March 14, 2026
thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for the advanced digital copy.
this book is out now.
-
i don't think i can review this book in a normal, objective way right now.
my mom passed away less than two months ago, and for a long time i was her caregiver. losing her has fundamentally altered my life in ways i'm still trying to understand. reading the valley of vengeful ghosts at this particular moment meant that i wasn't engaging with it purely as a piece of fiction. i was experiencing it through the lens of very fresh grief.
because of that, this isn't a fair judgment of the book itself. in fact, i plan to revisit it in the future when i'm in a different place emotionally, because i do think it deserves that.
what i can say is that kim fu captures grief with an intensity that felt almost unbearable in its accuracy. eleanor's experience - the dissociation, the obsessive spiraling, the strange fixation on small problems because the real one is too enormous to confront - rang painfully true to me. the way grief warps your focus, the way your mind tries to fix something when the one thing you want to fix is impossible. i recognized all of it.
yes, the book is atmospheric and haunting. yes, it's a slow, eerie descent into instability and isolation. but while reading it, i wasn't really processing the haunted-house elements as much as i was the emotional core of the story: what it means to lose the person who anchored your entire life.
eleanor's relationship with her mother is complicated in ways that differ from my own. her mother was controlling, while mine shaped my life simply because of her illness and the reality of caregiving. but the aftermath felt familiar. that feeling of being unmoored, suddenly responsible for a life you no longer recognize.
this book asks a quiet but devastating question: how do you survive when the person who defined your world is gone?
right now, i'm not sure i have an answer.
and god, i wish i didn't relate to this book as much as i did.
this book is out now.
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i don't think i can review this book in a normal, objective way right now.
my mom passed away less than two months ago, and for a long time i was her caregiver. losing her has fundamentally altered my life in ways i'm still trying to understand. reading the valley of vengeful ghosts at this particular moment meant that i wasn't engaging with it purely as a piece of fiction. i was experiencing it through the lens of very fresh grief.
because of that, this isn't a fair judgment of the book itself. in fact, i plan to revisit it in the future when i'm in a different place emotionally, because i do think it deserves that.
what i can say is that kim fu captures grief with an intensity that felt almost unbearable in its accuracy. eleanor's experience - the dissociation, the obsessive spiraling, the strange fixation on small problems because the real one is too enormous to confront - rang painfully true to me. the way grief warps your focus, the way your mind tries to fix something when the one thing you want to fix is impossible. i recognized all of it.
yes, the book is atmospheric and haunting. yes, it's a slow, eerie descent into instability and isolation. but while reading it, i wasn't really processing the haunted-house elements as much as i was the emotional core of the story: what it means to lose the person who anchored your entire life.
eleanor's relationship with her mother is complicated in ways that differ from my own. her mother was controlling, while mine shaped my life simply because of her illness and the reality of caregiving. but the aftermath felt familiar. that feeling of being unmoored, suddenly responsible for a life you no longer recognize.
this book asks a quiet but devastating question: how do you survive when the person who defined your world is gone?
right now, i'm not sure i have an answer.
and god, i wish i didn't relate to this book as much as i did.
March 13, 2026
The is the first novel after Fu's celebrated short story collection 'Lesser Monsters of the 21st Century', and it shows her ability to develop character and set a mood.
Eleanor's mother recently died, and Eleanor is flailing in adult life because her mother did everything for her. I mean, literally. Eleanor honors one of her mother's wishes by buying a house, a model home in a stalled development deep in the woods. As the home deteriorates as a storm lashes the valley, Eleanor has waking dreams in which she sees her mother (or is she really seeing a ghost?). She is also completely incapable of managing the challenges of home ownership.
As the house crumbles around her, ghosts may or may not be present, and Eleanor's mentality suffers (even though she's a therapist), I finally slapped my forehead with the realization: This is an homage to Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House'.
That put a different emphasis on how the book was read. Jackson was a master of suspenseful mood, and keeping the reader off balance as to what Eleanor was perceiving: Is it all in her head or is there some actual manifestation going on? In this book, the slow but inexorable deterioration of the house becomes so extreme that we begin to question if Eleanor is seeing it accurately.
Kudos to Kim Fu for slipping in the homage subtly enough so that I didn't twig to it immediately, and for crafting a contemporary homage that combines the horror of home ownership of a failing home with contractor issues, with the brittle psyche of a woman in deep mourning and is struggling to become a functioning adult in the 21st century.
The title is puzzling though. Which ghosts are the vengeful ones? This is a title that may comment upon the storyline with some ambiguity but gives the reader something more to consider.
Eleanor's mother recently died, and Eleanor is flailing in adult life because her mother did everything for her. I mean, literally. Eleanor honors one of her mother's wishes by buying a house, a model home in a stalled development deep in the woods. As the home deteriorates as a storm lashes the valley, Eleanor has waking dreams in which she sees her mother (or is she really seeing a ghost?). She is also completely incapable of managing the challenges of home ownership.
As the house crumbles around her, ghosts may or may not be present, and Eleanor's mentality suffers (even though she's a therapist), I finally slapped my forehead with the realization: This is an homage to Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House'.
That put a different emphasis on how the book was read. Jackson was a master of suspenseful mood, and keeping the reader off balance as to what Eleanor was perceiving: Is it all in her head or is there some actual manifestation going on? In this book, the slow but inexorable deterioration of the house becomes so extreme that we begin to question if Eleanor is seeing it accurately.
Kudos to Kim Fu for slipping in the homage subtly enough so that I didn't twig to it immediately, and for crafting a contemporary homage that combines the horror of home ownership of a failing home with contractor issues, with the brittle psyche of a woman in deep mourning and is struggling to become a functioning adult in the 21st century.
The title is puzzling though. Which ghosts are the vengeful ones? This is a title that may comment upon the storyline with some ambiguity but gives the reader something more to consider.
April 17, 2026
Thank you Harper Collins Audio Canada for this ALC. Unfortunately I feel sick to my stomach with how abruptly this book ended. It was a solid 4.5 all the way until it ended. I don't know how to explain what I mean without spoilers and I don't want to deter anyone from reading because I did really enjoy this, but I feel bamboozled by that ending. I genuinely was really enjoying this! I was loving it! And then! But I did like it enough that I'd read something else by this author. Great audiobook narration, as well!
February 14, 2026
Haunting, unsettling, atmospheric horror about a woman who buys a house while she is grieving her mom. Really didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did. Wonderful writing. Thank you Zando for sending me an early copy of this!
Want to Read
September 16, 2025gimme gimme gimme
May 13, 2026
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book
October 26, 2025
I devoured this book in one day. The story was a powerful tale of grief and loss and loneliness and learning to cope. I do feel like there was definitely room to make it longer and ad more and I definitely would have loved to hear more about the MC past the written ending, but overall I really enjoyed this book. The writing style was done in such a way that I really felt like I was in Elenor’s head with her. I’m super glad I picked up this free ARC at my local indie bookstore.
March 10, 2026
After the death of her mother, Eleanor finds herself completely untethered. For years, her life revolved around following her mother’s instructions, so when she’s suddenly left alone (with a small inheritance and one final directive to buy a house), she clings to that task with almost desperate determination. The home she chooses sits in a half-finished development in a valley with a murky past, and things go from bad to worse. As the rain refuses to stop and the house itself begins to feel unstable, Eleanor’s already fragile sense of reality starts to fracture.
It reads less like a traditional ghost story and more like a deeply psychological haunting. The ghosts here aren’t just supernatural. They’re made up of grief, guilt, and the complicated shadow Eleanor’s mother left behind. Much of the tension comes from watching Eleanor navigate life without the structure she relied on for so long. The atmosphere is incredibly effective. From the very beginning, there’s this quiet sense of wrongness that slowly builds as the rain keeps falling and Eleanor becomes more isolated in this strange, half-finished neighborhood. The setting mirrors her mental state; cracks appearing, foundations weakening, reality becoming harder to trust. It creates a mood that’s eerie and oppressive without ever relying on conventional horror beats.
The story leans into the uglier sides of grief and dependency, and it isn’t afraid to sit in those uncomfortable emotions and the darker side of love. There are several twists along the way that genuinely caught me off guard, which only added to the feeling that the ground beneath the narrative was constantly shifting. The prose itself is sharp and deliberate, and the story often feels almost like a nightmare. You’re never entirely sure what’s real and what’s a projection of Eleanor’s spiraling mental health. It’s also very much a literary novel. You need to be on board with a more metaphorical haunting.
My only hesitation came with the ending. I typically love ambiguous endings, especially in stories like this where uncertainty feels thematically appropriate. In this case, though, it didn’t land quite as strongly for me as I hoped. It fits the tone of the book, but I finished it wishing it hit just a little harder. This is an eerie, bleak, and unsettling exploration of grief and isolation. If you enjoy literary fiction that leans into atmosphere, psychological unease, and messy emotional truths rather than traditional horror structure, this one is definitely worth picking up.
Thanks so much to the author, Tin House Publishing, and Colored Pages Book Tours for the complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.
It reads less like a traditional ghost story and more like a deeply psychological haunting. The ghosts here aren’t just supernatural. They’re made up of grief, guilt, and the complicated shadow Eleanor’s mother left behind. Much of the tension comes from watching Eleanor navigate life without the structure she relied on for so long. The atmosphere is incredibly effective. From the very beginning, there’s this quiet sense of wrongness that slowly builds as the rain keeps falling and Eleanor becomes more isolated in this strange, half-finished neighborhood. The setting mirrors her mental state; cracks appearing, foundations weakening, reality becoming harder to trust. It creates a mood that’s eerie and oppressive without ever relying on conventional horror beats.
The story leans into the uglier sides of grief and dependency, and it isn’t afraid to sit in those uncomfortable emotions and the darker side of love. There are several twists along the way that genuinely caught me off guard, which only added to the feeling that the ground beneath the narrative was constantly shifting. The prose itself is sharp and deliberate, and the story often feels almost like a nightmare. You’re never entirely sure what’s real and what’s a projection of Eleanor’s spiraling mental health. It’s also very much a literary novel. You need to be on board with a more metaphorical haunting.
My only hesitation came with the ending. I typically love ambiguous endings, especially in stories like this where uncertainty feels thematically appropriate. In this case, though, it didn’t land quite as strongly for me as I hoped. It fits the tone of the book, but I finished it wishing it hit just a little harder. This is an eerie, bleak, and unsettling exploration of grief and isolation. If you enjoy literary fiction that leans into atmosphere, psychological unease, and messy emotional truths rather than traditional horror structure, this one is definitely worth picking up.
Thanks so much to the author, Tin House Publishing, and Colored Pages Book Tours for the complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.
May 10, 2026
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this for review
This is the type of story I love—one where I’m not ever sure if what’s happening is real and what exactly is the truth? Eleanor was a very intriguing character even if I was often angry at the choices she made. The relationship she had with her mother and her grief over her mother’s death permeate this story in such an intense way, it really weighs down everything. We can truly feel Eleanor’s grief and lack of desire to do much and how she is just going through the motions of her life. Even her choice to buy a model home in a valley to fulfill her mother’s dying wish is one made without much consideration. It’s a choice that opens her up to the ghosts of her life—from her past and present that start to haunt her new space. The house literally starts to fall apart around her as we see the effects of clear-cutting mountainsides and natural elements coming together in a way Eleanor can’t seem to navigate without her mother. This is a wonderful look into the physical weight of grief and guilt and how sometimes the ghosts that haunt us are ones we create for ourselves. I really enjoyed the writing here which was quiet yet unsettling. A psychological story that had me questioning the reality of everything. This is a great book that I definitely recommend to the right reader.
This is the type of story I love—one where I’m not ever sure if what’s happening is real and what exactly is the truth? Eleanor was a very intriguing character even if I was often angry at the choices she made. The relationship she had with her mother and her grief over her mother’s death permeate this story in such an intense way, it really weighs down everything. We can truly feel Eleanor’s grief and lack of desire to do much and how she is just going through the motions of her life. Even her choice to buy a model home in a valley to fulfill her mother’s dying wish is one made without much consideration. It’s a choice that opens her up to the ghosts of her life—from her past and present that start to haunt her new space. The house literally starts to fall apart around her as we see the effects of clear-cutting mountainsides and natural elements coming together in a way Eleanor can’t seem to navigate without her mother. This is a wonderful look into the physical weight of grief and guilt and how sometimes the ghosts that haunt us are ones we create for ourselves. I really enjoyed the writing here which was quiet yet unsettling. A psychological story that had me questioning the reality of everything. This is a great book that I definitely recommend to the right reader.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Hurray! A new Kim Fu book! Thanks to Tin House/Zando for an early copy.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts follows Eleanor, a 30-something woman who uses the inheritance money left to her by her recently deceased mother to make the extremely ill-advised purchase of her first house: one of two model homes in an unfinished development, carved into a secluded, flood-prone valley in the Pacific Northwest. A work-from-home therapist, Eleanor spends her days helping grainy Zoom clients build skills to manage their tragedies and problems while her own mental health spirals and her shoddily built home collapses around her. She's visited by the ghost of her mother, Lele, (meaner than she ever was in real life) as well as the ghost of the real estate developer, who died by suicide after he ran out of money to pay his contractors. But these supernatural components function more like quiet amplifiers of the main conflict, which is Eleanor's struggle to build and maintain an idealized, adult independence after her mom's passing. The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is not a horror story; it's an uncanny exploration of the slow creep of psychological and financial ruin.
I generally don't love stories about grown-ups struggling to "adult," so it's a mark of Fu's talents as a writer that this book grabbed me as much as it did. There are so many layers to Eleanor's suffering, hinted at and then gradually pulled into the light as the book progresses. As in Fu's short stories, the supernatural elements end up feeling less outlandish than the behaviors of the real-life people around her. There's an incredible scene where Eleanor goes out to dinner with her mentor, a fellow therapist named Teddy, and his wife, who proceed to use Eleanor as a pawn in an ongoing argument; an earlier scene, involving a menacing encounter with a locksmith, is arguably the scariest part of the book.
But without question, the most compelling part of the novel is Fu's writing. She has a Lorrie Moore-esque way of compressing the most complex absurdities of human nature into just a sentence or two. It's a treat to be back in one of her worlds.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts follows Eleanor, a 30-something woman who uses the inheritance money left to her by her recently deceased mother to make the extremely ill-advised purchase of her first house: one of two model homes in an unfinished development, carved into a secluded, flood-prone valley in the Pacific Northwest. A work-from-home therapist, Eleanor spends her days helping grainy Zoom clients build skills to manage their tragedies and problems while her own mental health spirals and her shoddily built home collapses around her. She's visited by the ghost of her mother, Lele, (meaner than she ever was in real life) as well as the ghost of the real estate developer, who died by suicide after he ran out of money to pay his contractors. But these supernatural components function more like quiet amplifiers of the main conflict, which is Eleanor's struggle to build and maintain an idealized, adult independence after her mom's passing. The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is not a horror story; it's an uncanny exploration of the slow creep of psychological and financial ruin.
I generally don't love stories about grown-ups struggling to "adult," so it's a mark of Fu's talents as a writer that this book grabbed me as much as it did. There are so many layers to Eleanor's suffering, hinted at and then gradually pulled into the light as the book progresses. As in Fu's short stories, the supernatural elements end up feeling less outlandish than the behaviors of the real-life people around her. There's an incredible scene where Eleanor goes out to dinner with her mentor, a fellow therapist named Teddy, and his wife, who proceed to use Eleanor as a pawn in an ongoing argument; an earlier scene, involving a menacing encounter with a locksmith, is arguably the scariest part of the book.
But without question, the most compelling part of the novel is Fu's writing. She has a Lorrie Moore-esque way of compressing the most complex absurdities of human nature into just a sentence or two. It's a treat to be back in one of her worlds.
March 31, 2026
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu is a deeply thought-provoking psychological horror that explores the complexities of the human mind rather than relying on traditional scares. The story feels haunting in a quiet, unsettling way, focusing on the emotional and mental struggles a person endures. Eleanor’s character stands out as the heart of the book—her loneliness and inner turmoil are portrayed with striking depth. You can almost feel the darkness surrounding her, page after page. The moments of despair are raw and impactful, making the story linger long after it ends. It’s a subtle yet powerful exploration of psychological horror.
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April 2, 2026Kim Fu's The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts takes a different approach to the haunted house novel.
Tobias Carroll reviews a novel comparable to Crimson Peak in a housing crisis.
Tobias Carroll reviews a novel comparable to Crimson Peak in a housing crisis.
March 8, 2026
An on-line therapist struggles to cope with an expanding series of harrowing events in this compelling novel of horror. I usually avoid this genre, but have to admit this was an enjoyable read.
January 25, 2026
Determined to carry out her mother’s final instruction, Eleanor impulsively buys a house. It doesn’t take long for the cracks to begin to show.
As the story progressed, Eleanor’s character started to wear thin for me. It was frustrating watching someone so helpless continually fumble, especially while being in a position where she needed to help others.
This was a slow burn, but I really enjoyed the eerie and unsettling atmosphere as everything slowly went from bad to worse.
Thank you to NetGalley and Zando Projects for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
As the story progressed, Eleanor’s character started to wear thin for me. It was frustrating watching someone so helpless continually fumble, especially while being in a position where she needed to help others.
This was a slow burn, but I really enjoyed the eerie and unsettling atmosphere as everything slowly went from bad to worse.
Thank you to NetGalley and Zando Projects for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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